Re:German govt proposes law to force WhatsApp Gmail etc to h...
by pjc50 on Saturday December 14, 2019 @03:40PM
(#21792073)
I'd have thought that Germany would have enough representatives from the DDR to know why this is a bad idea. Which is why they're usually one of the most anti-surveillance countries in Europe and leaders of GDPR campaigning.
Re:German govt proposes law to force WhatsApp Gmail etc to h...
by wongarsu on Saturday December 14, 2019 @04:00PM
(#21792221)
Even though we are fairly anti-surveillance as a whole, a lot of fairly radical surveillance laws get proposed all the time. Most die early, some die after push-back from the population, some get voted in and are thrown out by the constitutional court, and a few survive. It's a never ending fight.
For example, in the 80's there was concern about 'bugging' in the UK. But at the time, there was actually informed debate in parliament about the technical details. This could happen because since there was so much labour involved in maintaining the old systems, large numbers of people actually knew how they worked. There were MPs who had formerly been telecom linemen, and followed the trade->union official -> Labour party -> MP route into parliament.
Nowadays I can't think of an MP who would actually have the background to know that this is a bad idea, themselves.